


The Fairy Garden

by SuperKat



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Lesbian Character, Canon Lesbian Relationship, F/F, Fix-It, Ghosts, Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:28:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28141653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperKat/pseuds/SuperKat
Summary: Jamie and Dani are invited to spend a week-end at a Bed and Breakfast in rural Vermont.  With Dani's ex-almost-mother-in-law.  Jamie is not thrilled.  Then there are ghosts, and Jamie is even LESS thrilled.
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie
Comments: 4
Kudos: 41
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	The Fairy Garden

**Author's Note:**

  * For [avocadomoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/avocadomoon/gifts).



> Warnings: Swearing, ghosts, some minimal violence, people drink a lot of wine, reference to a gun

“We don’t _have_ to go.”

Dani sighs, fixing Jamie with that half-smile that says: _I love you more than anything in the world,_ and also _You are absolutely wrong_ and _We are literally loading the truck right now._

“We _don’t,”_ Jamie insists. It’s useless, most likely, but she's got to try one more time. Her fingertips are already itching at the prospect of a weekend with Dani’s ex-almost-mother-in-law.

“We’re committed,” is all Dani will say before she climbs into the passenger seat.

 _Or we should be_ , Jamie wants to say. Alternatively: _Yeah, well who’s the one driving there?_ She refrains; Dani doesn’t like jokes about mental health, and they both know why Dani doesn’t drive. Jamie would rather deal with one of the most awkward weekends of her life than bring That into the conversation right now. 

“Judy was more like a mom to me than my own mother was,” Dani says as Jamie climbs into the truck. She’s said that before. Sort of a low bar, really, though Jamie doesn’t say that bit aloud either.

“89 to 91?” she confirms before starting the ignition. Dani, checking the map, nods. 

“Then route 11 west until we get to Chester. I have written directions from there. I don’t think it’s too far from the town center.”

“What’s it called again?”

“The Fairy Garden Bed and Breakfast.”

Jamie almost backs into a streetlight. She slams on the breaks and fixes her wife with a dubious stare. “You’re joking.”

Dani smiles with that twisted look she gets when she’s amused and exasperated at the same time. She is far too pretty. “I’m not.” 

“The.” Jamie stares ahead for a moment. “Was that on purpose, d’you reckon?”

“Probably not. I thought of that too, but Carson says she’s pretty oblivious about that sort of thing. She tries hard though.” 

“And Carson’s the gay son?”

“Yeah.” Dani thinks for a moment as Jamie turns onto College Street. “But I don’t think she…no.” Dani shakes her head. “She wouldn’t. It took her _years_ to accept…no. No, she didn’t.”

Jamie stops at a red light and they exchange glances. There’s a moment of stunned silence before they both dissolve into laughter.

* * *

Vermont, Jamie will admit even after years of living here, is just as pretty as it was in _White Christmas_. It's even prettier in autumn, if she's being honest. She’ll never get over the crooked, rounded hills blanketed in a beautiful mix of red and yellow and orange. She does, however, get angrier every year with the flocks of tourists crawling down the motorway at 30 miles per hour and clogging all the streets downtown. “Leaf-peepers,” the locals call them. Jamie supposes that she’s technically one of them, especially now as she gapes at the landscape just west of Montpelier, but at least she goes the bloody speed limit.

They spend most of the ride in companionable silence, which is nice. Jamie reckons that Dani’s nervous, for all her insistence that they _have_ to do this. She'll be alright, Jamie knows. This is the sort of thing she's good at, socializing and connecting to people. Jamie's the one who'll be the problem. 

Chester is exactly the sort of town you find scattered all over this state: small and picturesque and full of fancy antique shops; the sort of place rich people go to feel rustic. There are two streets lined with shops, a small village green, and then they’re back in the woods. 

At Dani's direction, Jamie turns onto a narrow road winding up a hill. It climbs for a bit, then turns to gravel just before they reach a massive white house with elegant white pillars in front and uneven gables on all sides. Before the front steps, a small stone walkway winds through a garden; it's a bit tacky for Jamie's tastes but obviously well-managed. Where the driveway meets the road, a huge white sign reads _“The Fairy Garden Bed and Breakfast”_ in gold script. They park on a stretch of gravel beside the house, taking a moment to admire the rolling, sweeping back lawn with its pretty white gazebo and small pond lined with plants that are probably meant to look natural even though Jamie's sure they're not even native. Behind that, more forest stretches up and over some low hills.

“Not bad,” Jamie says with a nod. The two of them sit in silence, admiring the view. A young couple is reading a smaller white sign, which reads _"To the Lookout," "Nature Walk,"_ and " _To the old barn,'"_ in more gold script with arrows pointing in different directions.

Eventually, Dani takes a long, slow breath. 

“Ready?” she asks. Jamie grips the steering wheel one last time.

“Let’s _do_ this,” she says in her best approximation of an American accent. Dani laughs. It’s not great, but it’s better than any of her attempts at sounding British, and they both know it.

* * *

The front hall is lined with paintings and maps and large photographs of all the typical Vermont things: snow-covered farms, covered bridges in the height of summer, a beautiful woodland trail and a sunset over some mountains. Dani checks in while Jamie looks around, one photograph in particular catching her eye. 

Nestled in a forest clearing sits the singed, decrepit frame of what must have been a barn once upon a time. The photographer did a nice job with it, but it’s not naturally beautiful. At the bottom of the frame, small gold plaque reads: “ _The Old Barn_.” Underneath it, a framed newspaper article titled _"Chester's Most Famous Ghost"_ depicts a black-and-white photograph of the same barn at a distinctly different angle, looming over the camera like something sinister. Underneath _that_ is another framed photograph, this one dark and fuzzy, of what looks like a small girl in a white nightgown standing far away. 

Jamie moves on. She’s had _quite_ enough ghosts for one lifetime, thank you very much.

* * *

As it turns out, Judy O’Mara has been here long enough to have started on the drink already, not that Jamie blames her. They find her sitting in a cozy cafe-like room, near a bay window overlooking the back lawn. 

It’s awkward, obviously. How could it not be? Mrs O'Mara and Jamie exchange stiff, keep-our-bodies-as-far-apart-as-possible hugs and greet each other with voices that are noticeably too high-pitched. They make the briefest possible eye-contact before sitting down. Dani and Mrs. O carry the majority of the conversation, chatting about the drive, the beauty of New England in Autumn, the nice young couple from Massachusetts staying in the room next to Mrs. O's. All of them drink _a lot_ of red wine, Jamie most of all. She has to resist an urge to order a bottle for herself and just drink it straight out. As funny as it would be, Jamie wants to make this easier for Dani, not harder.

Jamie doesn’t realize she’s zoned out until the word “ghost” snaps her back into the conversation. 

“I’m not usually one for ghost stories,” Mrs. O is saying, “but if there’s ever a time and a place, this is it.”

Jamie chances a look at Dani, who isn’t reacting with anything except polite interest, not that that means much.

It’s not like they’ve never broached the topic. America - particularly this part - leans into Halloween almost as much as it celebrates Christmas, and local ghost stories can be a massive sell in a rural area that relies so much on tourism. Most of them are probably bollocks, but Jamie and Dani try to avoid notoriously haunted places, just in case. Neither of them is particularly keen to find out what Viola Lloyd would do if Dani came across another ghost face-to-face. 

“Has anyone,” Dani asks, before Jamie can say anything, “…seen her?”

“Not in the house, as far as I know,” Mrs. O’Mara says. Jamie hides her sigh of relief in her wine glass. “Apparently she’s been spotted on the lawn at night a few times. A little girl in a white nightgown. But I didn’t have time to read the whole story.”

Then they’re off again, talking about old buildings and unsolved mysteries and whatnot while Jamie finishes off her glass, keeping a surreptitious eye on the line where the forest meets the back lawn.

* * *

Their bedroom is fairly small, with a queen-sized bed (Jamie, who had been half-expecting two twin beds, feels grateful for that at least), and a window overlooking the front garden. Jamie - long past drunk - falls asleep almost immediately. 

She wakes up in the middle of the night to find Dani’s side of the bed empty. Panicking, Jamie checks the bathroom, the hallway, the lounge. Everything is dark and empty. Terror surges in her chest as she finally looks out the bay window.

Dani, still in her night gown, is standing stone-still at the center of the lawn, her back to the house. Jamie doesn’t bother to put on a coat or shoes, but she barely registers the way the cold night air brushes her bare arms as she runs.

“Dani,” she says, taking her wife by the shoulders. Dani is looking into the woods with a blank expression. “Dani!”

Behind her, a young girl giggles. Jamie whips around to find nothing except the dark strip of trees marking the edge of the forest. 

“Jamie?”

Jamie turns back. Dani blinks at her, confused, and Jamie feels her entire body unclench. She wants to cry with relief.

“What happened?”

“You tell me,” Jamie cups Dani's cheeks in her hands. “I woke up and you were just…here. Staring at the woods.”

Dani frowns. “I heard her. I think…I think I saw her.”

“Who?” Jamie shakes her head. “The little girl?” There's a moment of near-silence in which Jamie realizes she doesn’t want to know the answer. “We should go.”

Dani nods. “Yeah. It’s freezing out here.”

“No. I mean we should go _home_.”

Dani shakes her head. “We can’t.”

“We _can,_ ” panic edges into Jamie’s voice. “Tell her you’re ill. Tell her _I’m_ ill. Let her be mad about it. I’m not…” Jamie swallows, feeling her chest tighten. “I’m not going to lose you because of a week-end with some woman you owe _nothing_ -”

“Jamie.” 

Dani is smiling with that soft, gentle expression that makes Jamie’s entire body go weak. In the dim light, Dani's eyes almost look the same color.

“This isn’t it,” she says, and Jamie does not have to ask what she means. “Trust me, okay?”

Reluctantly, Jamie nods.

* * *

Jamie wakes in the morning to find Dani smiling down at her. _See_? her expression says. _I’m still here._ _We have another day_. 

To Jamie's relief, no one seems to have noticed their trip onto the grounds. Mrs. O meets them in the lounge for breakfast and they spend the day taking nature walks and browsing antique stores and killing time with awkward, meaningless chatter. It’s long and it’s slow and the effort not to groan loudly every other minute is _exhausting._ She finds herself counting down the hours until it's late enough to start drinking again.

When the three of them return to the house late in the afternoon, the couple from Massachusetts is already there, talking quietly and studying some of the paintings. The blond woman pauses long enough to greet Mrs. O with a warm smile, but to Jamie's relief, she goes back to whatever she's saying fairly quickly. Jamie's not sure she could handle more awkward conversation with even more rich, straight Americans. It's Jamie who buys the first bottle of wine, mostly for the excuse to have a moment to herself.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Mrs. O is saying when Jamie joins them, "about your eyes." Jamie almost drops the wine glasses. “How did you do that? Is it one of those colored contacts? Why just the one brown one?”

Usually Dani tells people she was born with heterochromia, but obviously that's not going to work with a woman who has known her since childhood. Dani catches Jamie's eye over Mrs. O's shoulder.

“While I was working at the manor, a woman there- died. She and I had been close, and she meant a lot to the people who worked there. Between her and…” Dani stumbles over her words for a moment. “It was a lot of death in a short time. It felt like a way to…to carry them with me.” 

Dani is not a fantastic liar. Sort of shite at it, really. But it works. Mrs. O’s eyes fill with tears and she stands up to wrap Dani in a long hug. When she sits down, she gives Jamie a teary smile that seems genuine for the first time…ever. There's a moment where Jamie wonders if she's about to get a real hug this time, but it's broken when the couple from Massachusetts bursts into the lounge, the young man all but flinging himself to the bar while the woman smiles apologetically.

"I want to know," the man says, "all about your resident ghost." Jamie's heart thuds in her chest. This is the last thing she needs.

The owner, an older man in a red flannel shirt, leans one elbow against the bar and smiles. "Are you sure?"

"Absolutely."

"And you?" the owner raises his eyebrows at the blond woman, who rolls her eyes.

"He won't shut up about it until you tell us," she replies, placing an affectionate hand on her husband's back. 

Jamie is about to suggest that she and Dani and Mrs O take another walk on the grounds, but Mrs O is looking at the owner with interest. "I was curious too," she says before Jamie can do anything to stop her. 

"Well then." The owner steps out from behind the bar and sits on a stool, looking out over the back lawn with a contemplative stare that is obviously rehearsed. "If you're sure."

Jamie tries to catch Dani's eye, but Dani is watching the owner, looking to all the world like she's just another tourist listening to a local legend, instead of a person who's had a 400-year-old angry spirit inside of her for almost a decade.

 _This isn't it,_ she'd said. Jamie hopes she was right.

"A few hundred years ago, this area was a sheep farm," the owner says. "We don't know much about the people who lived here, but the stories say that they needed a farmhand but couldn't afford to hire someone, so they adopted an orphan. They wanted a strong young son to take on the chores, but somehow they ended up with a little girl."

Jamie thinks she can poke a few holes in this story, and she doesn’t know shite about American history. 

“Some say the little girl was made to sleep in the loft of the barn instead of the house." The owner scratches his beard. _This is almost as bad as storytime_ , Jamie thinks. "I don’t know if that’s true or not, but we _do_ know that the barn burned down one night, in a fire so bad that it took almost everything with it, including the little girl."

Mrs. O’Mara gasps.

“People say they see her ghost at night, usually on the edge of the woods or wandering around the lawn.” The owner grins. “Some claim she’s spoken to them; they say that she likes to invite people to see her fairy garden."

“Have you seen her?” the young woman asks. 

“A few times. Just glimpses, though. Sometimes when I’m coming in from chopping wood, I’ll hear something like a little girl laughing, and I’ll turn around and there’s nothing there.” Jamie and Dani exchange glances. “I’ll admit I’ve never gone looking for her. I’d just as soon leave her in peace, and not find out what ‘fairy garden’ means.”

Jamie holds back a snide comment about how he’d seemed fine naming his business after it. The young couple asks a few more questions, but Jamie keeps her attention on her wife, whose polite smile is slowly fading behind a faint shadow of fear and recognition, an expression that Jamie has come to know - and despise. Jamie will take them both home in the middle of the night if it comes to that. 

Dani catches her looking, then gives her that small knowing smile that Jamie has also learned to recognize. _I see you,_ it says. _I know you_. She never looks at anyone else like that. Jamie feels her insides relax as she takes her next gulp of wine.

* * *

Jamie wakes up, again, in full darkness, to find Dani’s half of the bed empty. Cursing under her breath, Jamie finds a window overlooking the back lawn before bothering to check anywhere else. 

She's there again. Stone-still, barefoot, looking as much like a ghost as that bloody photograph.

“Fuck this,” Jamie whispers. As before, she runs down the stairs and out the door without bothering to put on a coat or shoes. 

Dani is staring into the woods again, the moonlight spilling over her cheeks and shoulders. Her brows are knitted together in an expression of tight anger that Jamie has never seen on her before.

“Dani?” Jamie's voice is trembling. Behind her, the sound of a little girl’s laugh makes her jump.

“We're getting out of here,” she says. Dani doesn’t respond at first. After a moment, she looks at Jamie. Her eyes narrow, and Jamie’s heart skips a beat. 

“You will not keep me from my daughter,” she says, her voice low and cold. She shoves Jamie aside so hard that Jamie struggles to keep her footing. Dani's body starts to walk toward the forest with a stride that is long and slow and steady. Jamie grits her teeth, running to stand in front of her even as her heart threatens to beat out of her chest.

“That,” she says, fighting to keep her voice steady, “is not your daughter. And I’ll have my wife back now, thank you very much.”

Viola Lloyd responds with a look that is cold and dignified and blood-curdling. 

“Your daughter,” Jamie says, her breath trembling. “Has been dead for 400 years. Just like you. We are halfway around the bloody globe from anyone who ever knew you. That child is not your daughter, and that body is not yours. Now _give. Her. Back._ ”

Viola's shoulders are back, her chin high. Her stare makes Jamie feel naked and exposed, but Jamie doesn't move. Behind her, the laughter turns to soft sobs. Viola looks away and Jamie knows that the moment is lost. It's Viola's face she sees, fierce and hard and angry, as she is lifted from the ground with icy cold fingers around her neck.

“She needs me,” Viola says in a voice that is obviously Dani’s yet so very, very not. “Do not get in my way again.”

Then: darkness.

* * *

“Jamie? Jamie!” 

Jamie blinks, groaning as Mrs. O’Mara’s silhouette takes shape above her. She looks terrified, pulling the collar of her robe tighter around herself as she stares, wide-eyed, at Jamie. Jamie sits up. There’s a moment of confusion - the moonlight flickering on the pond, crickets chirping behind her, a cold breeze stinging the back of her neck - before she remembers. Then she’s on her feet so quickly that Mrs O’Mara gasps.

“Are you alright?” 

Jamie starts toward the forest at a near-run. She considers, for a moment, getting her rifle from the truck, but it’s too far away and there’s no time and she's not sure it would do any good. She can hear Mrs O’s footsteps on the grass behind her.

“What are you doing? You should rest - someone should take you to a hospital. If you just wait a minute, I’ll go find Dani.” 

At the sound of her wife’s name, Jamie narrows her eyes and walks faster.

“Wait- what are you-” Mrs. O’s voice raises in pitch as she sputters. “It’s pitch black out- why are you- Jamie, _stop!”_

The last words are so sharp that Jamie falters in her step. “There’s no time to explain,” she says without turning around. 

“What do you mean there’s no time? What is going on with you? Are you really going- in pitch darkness- does Dani know you’re out here?”

Jamie does turn around this time, and her expression must have some of her old anger in it because Mrs. O stops, her eyes widening. 

“Dani,” Jamie growls, “is in the woods. I’m going to find her. Come with if you don’t believe me, but I’m going _now.”_

She doesn't wait for a reply. 

And she’s off again. The path into the woods is shrouded in darkness; she’ll barely be able to see the ground once she’s in there. She doesn’t care. 

“What are you talking about?” Mrs. O’Mara asks. Jamie does not have the words, or the time, to try to explain. She is _not_ going to lose the best part of herself because some rich, entitled American demanded answers that she wasn’t going to believe anyway.

Jamie pauses for a moment at the entrance to the forest to listen; for what, she doesn’t know. Footsteps, maybe, or voices. There’s nothing but the crickets, who don’t seem to notice or care about ghostly activity. Maybe they’re just used to it. 

Walking through the woods, cautiously now, keeping her steps as quiet as possible, Jamie remembers nights at Bly - not all of them, but once in a while - when everything would stop, when silence would descend over the manor and its grounds like a veil. The stillness was cold and dangerous and oppressive. Jamie never mentioned it to anyone, but it was one of the reasons she didn’t like to be on the grounds after dark. She wonders, years later, if that was because of Her. 

This is nothing like that. Hearing Mrs. O’Mara mutter under her breath as grass and leaves crunch underfoot, Jamie wonders for a terrifying moment if Mrs O is right, if Dani is sleeping safely in their bed while Jamie leads Mrs O through the pitch-dark forest for no reason at all.

But...there it is again. The young girl, giggling. Mrs. O gasps and Jamie feels her insides lighten with a flash of relief before her whole body tenses. It’s all real, then. 

“Jamie,” Mrs. O whispers. “Did you hear-”

“Quiet!” Jamie directs her shush over her shoulder without stopping. “Just...stay behind me.”

Mrs. O doesn’t reply.

* * *

_It’s dark. That much she knows. She can feel the jungle closing in around her, and it’s so very dark. Jamie is here for a moment. Then she’s gone. Or rather,_ she's _gone, lost in a memory of them in the flower shop, in that moment when Jamie told her she was in love and Dani let herself hope that she could maybe let herself have this one thing._

 _But it isn’t real. It isn’t_ here _. And if she’s in it, that means..._

_“I can’t leave you like this,” she tells the Jamie in the flower shop. Jamie, cupping the moonflower in both hands, gives her a knowing smile._

_“You won’t,” she says._

* * *

It’s dark again, here in the jungle or the forest or wherever she is. Her eyes take a moment to adjust, but eventually - aided by the pale, stringy light of the half-moon filtered through the trees - Dani notices the young girl. She's kneeling in a bare patch of dirt, arranging rocks in a circle. Her hair hangs around her face and her nightgown is in tatters, but she seems...peaceful.

“They live here,” she says. “They’re always happy, and warm. And safe. They’re never alone, you see. That’s the secret.”

“It's a lovely secret.”

Dani jumps, her heart pounding and her skin tingling with adrenaline. She's never heard that voice before, not really, not out loud, but the sound of it sets every nerve in her body on high alert. She gapes as Viola Lloyd, full-featured and calm, kneels beside the little girl.

“They’re lucky they have you to watch over them,” says Viola, her voice deep and gentle, her eyes brimming with something that Dani barely recognizes.

Dani looks away. She feels like she’s intruding on something private. Viola Lloyd, the monster in her jungle, the creature that's spent ten years waiting for its chance to squeeze the life out of everything it touches, gently tugs the little girl into an embrace so warm and tender that Dani tears up just watching it. She tries not to look too hard at Viola’s face, full of expression in a way she’s never seen before. She could. She could. They could...

Voices. Viola and the little girl look up, the little girl startling as if she’s just noticed Dani standing here. Viola’s eyes narrow dangerously as two people burst into the clearing behind Dani’s back.

* * *

“Dani!”

The first thing Jamie sees is her wife standing at the edge of a clearing near the old barn. An instant later, she notices The Thing From The Lake kneeling in some dirt. Without having to think about it, Jamie places herself between Dani and the thing that calls itself Viola. 

There’s a little girl here too, she notices, at almost the same moment when Mrs. O’Mara starts to scream. 

The sound seems to snap Dani out of whatever funk she’s in. Jamie can sense her movement, can hear her whispering, “Judy, Judy it’s okay. It’s alright.”

Viola rises in a slow, fluid motion that makes Jamie’s blood run cold. Her chin is lowered, her dark hair framing her pale face. She looks at Dani and Mrs. O’Mara with dark, narrowed eyes devoid of anything resembling emotion.

“Stay away from her,” Jamie snaps. 

The little girl whimpers. Viola looks down, her eyebrows furrowed.

“You’re...not Isobel,” she says. Her voice is exactly as Jamie would have imagined it, deep and posh and full of cold authority. 

The little girl shakes her head, her eyes wide. 

“I told you,” Jamie says, “Isobel is gone. Give it up already.”

But of course, it’s not that easy. Viola’s refusal to give up on anything is what kept her and everyone else at Bly for over 400 years, even as their names and faces faded into oblivion. She’s not just going to stop now.

“I will not be left alone again,” she says. Fuck this. Jamie has a wild urge to grab Dani by the hand and lead her to the truck before driving away into the night. Let this monster kill everyone else at this stupid B&B. If it means Jamie gets to keep her wife-

Obviously she doesn't mean that, not for more than a half-second. Love and possession are opposites, after all, and Dani would never let anyone die on her behalf. She’d lose herself entirely before she’d let that happen. It’s one of the reasons Jamie loves her so bloody much.

The little girl stands up, a movement that is jerking and unsteady and unnaturally silent. Her foot passes through a stone, and Mrs. O’Mara lets out a soft, wobbling cry. Dani whispers something inaudible to her.

“Please,” the little girl says. Is she crying? It's hard to tell. “I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

There’s a moment of silence so cold and so tense that Jamie can feel her arm hairs standing on end. Slowly, Viola turns her head to look down at the little girl, who is whimpering now. _Please_ , Jamie thinks, desperate tears springing to her eyes. _Please. We could be happy. Just let us have this._

“Everyone has left you,” Viola says. Her voice is warmer, softer. She’s almost smiling. “You are all alone. I know what that’s like. Maybe,” Jamie’s heart thuds. “Maybe I could stay.”

The little girl bursts into a smile that seems to bring her body into full color. She wraps her arms around Viola’s waist, a tight embrace that is returned, with some hesitation at first, in full.

Jamie feels a warm hand on her shoulder. Dani smiles, her eyes - her beautiful, blue eyes - brimming with unshed tears. 

“We should go,” Dani whispers. She looks over Jamie’s shoulder; Jamie turns again to see Viola watching them both. Viola nods once, a slow, authoritative sort of gesture, then she and the little girl are gone. 

* * *

  
  
Mrs O doesn't say a word until they're back in the house. Even then she has a few false starts, opening and closing her mouth, blinking and shaking her head.

"I- I don't," she mutters as they're walking up the stairs. "I. What?"

"It's alright," Dani says for what must be the hundredth time. "We're safe. They won't hurt you."

"But," Mrs O stops, looking over her shoulder as if expecting to see someone on the landing. "You. How did you..." She trails off, her brow furrowed, her head shaking back and forth so quickly that Jamie wonders if she's having a seizure. 

By unspoken agreement they lead her into their bedroom and let her sit in the desk chair while Jamie puts on a sweatshirt and Dani draws the curtains. Dani sits on the edge of the bed, so close to Mrs O that their knees are almost touching. Jamie sort of hovers for a moment before sitting at the head of the bed.

"I know this must be terrifying for you," Dani says. "I remember how that feels. But I _promise_ you that we're safe. Everything is going to be just fine."

"How can you possibly know that?" Mrs O'Mara asks.

"Well," Dani says, her voice light and peaceful and gentle and _free._ "You're just going to have to trust me."

Mrs O studies her for a moment. "You..." she says. "You're very different now." 

_You have no idea_ , Jamie thinks.

* * *

"I'm telling you," the young man from Massachusetts keeps saying at breakfast. "I heard something last night." The blond woman sighs. "I _did._ I swear. Footsteps, voices, doors closing, all that. There was something _in the house_ ; I'm-"

"Laurie," the woman says, rolling her eyes. "You slept through the whole night. _Soundly._ You didn't hear anything." 

"I did!" he insists, brandishing a cup of coffee as if to supplement his story with it. "I'm telling you, I did..."

As the young couple continues to argue, Jamie and Dani and Mrs O wave goodbye to the owner. Outside, it's unseasonably warm, and they spend a few moments chatting awkwardly in the driveway. At first it's all light, meaningless chatter, like nothing ever happened, but just as they're walking to the truck, Mrs O stops them.

"I," she says. "I just want to say." She pauses, chuckles, shakes her head. "What do you say in this situation? Thank you? I'm sorry?"

"You don't have to say anything," Dani tries to assure her.

"I think maybe I do," says Mrs O. "I don't understand- anything that's happened. But, you- the person you've become- You're- you're more _you_ now. I," Mrs. O cuts herself off, chuckling. "I must sound like such a fool. I don't even know what I'm saying!" She takes a shaking breath, looking between Dani and Jamie with eyes that are brimming with tears. "Whatever you did- I. Thank you. I keep thinking I understand the way the world works and then something happens to- I guess to teach me that I never really will." She does this weird thing that Jamie has seen other American women do, where she nods and shakes her head at the same time. 

Dani, smiling, pulls her into another long hug. Jamie looks away, dragging her toe through the gravel and wondering if she should go start the truck. 

"This was wonderful," Dani says. Jamie holds back a scoff. "I mean that. It was wonderful seeing you again."

"And you, my dear," Mrs. O is full-on crying now. "We should definitely do this again sometime." She means it. Bloody hell, she _means_ it. "Though..." she looks around, then whispers to Dani with a conspiratorial smile, "Maybe not at this particular place."

Dani laughs.

* * *

It's not until they're on 89 passing Mt Ascutney that Jamie finally broaches the topic. Dani seems so peaceful, watching the trees go by with a small, dreamy smile.

"So," Jamie says. "Is she. Does this mean...is she gone?"

Dani smiles, her beautiful blue eyes sparkling with tears. "Yeah."

Jamie pulls over at the next rest area, and they spend what must be half an hour just holding each other, alternating between laughter and soft sobs before making out like a pair of teenagers.

"We should get home," Jamie manages to say at one point. Dani smiles, a look that is mischievous and joyful and so full of life that she seems about to explode with it. Her hands are warm on Jamie's cheeks, her smile broad and infectious and _free._

"Why?" Dani whispers. "We have all the time in the world."

She has a point.

* * *

END.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Yuletide! I hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
